Yesterday, the House, which cares for diplomacy about as much as it cares for public interest regulations, made its latest attempt to undermine the Iran Deal.
The bill—the Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act—requires the US government to publicly report all assets held by some of Iran's highest leaders and to describe how these assets are acquired and used.
Obama intends to veto it, and for good reason, as outlined in his Statement of Administrative Policy on the bill:
Rather than preventing terrorist financing and money laundering, this bill would incentivize those involved to make their financial dealings less transparent and create a disincentive for Iran's banking sector to demonstrate transparency. These onerous reporting requirements also would take critical resources away from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's important work to identify Iranian entities engaged in sanctionable conduct. Producing this information could also compromise intelligence sources and methods.
….
In addition, this bill's required public postings also may be perceived by Iran and likely our Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) partners as an attempt to undermine the fulfilment of our commitments, in turn impacting the continued viability of this diplomatic arrangement that peacefully and verifiably prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. If the JCPOA were to fail on that basis, it would remove the unprecedented constraints on and monitoring of Iran's nuclear program, lead to the unraveling of the international sanctions regime against Iran, and deal a devastating blow to the credibility of America's leadership and our commitments to our closest allies.
The bill passed 282 to 143. 240 Republicans and 42 Democrats voted for it. 141 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted against it.
The two Republicans were Jimmy Duncan (TN-02) and Walter Jones (NC-03).
Here are the 42 Democrats:
Pete Aguilar (CA-31)
Brad Ashford (NE-02)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Brendan Boyle (PA-13)
Julia Brownley (CA-26)
Tony Cárdenas (CA-29)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Pete DeFazio (OR-04)
John Delaney (MD-06)
Ted Deutch (FL-21)
Eliot Engel (NY-16)
Lois Frankel (FL-22)
Gwen Graham (FL-02)
Gene Green (TX-29)
Janice Hahn (CA-44)
Alcee Hastings (FL-20)
Steny Hoyer (MD-05)
Steve Israel (NY-03)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
Ted Lieu (CA-33)
Dan Lipinski (IL-03)
Nita Lowey (NY-17)
Stephen Lynch (MA-08)
Carolyn Maloney (NY-12)
Grace Meng (NY-06)
Donald Norcross (NJ-01)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Collin Peterson (MN-07)
Mike Quigley (IL-05)
Kathleen Rice (NY-04)
Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD-02)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
David Scott (GA-13)
Brad Sherman (CA-30)
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
Albio Sires (NJ-08)
Dina Titus (NV-01)
Chris Van Hollen (MD-08)
Juan Vargas (CA-51)
Marc Veasey (TX-33)
Filemon Vela (TX-34)
